


Light the Flame (right before it rains)

by Ardatli



Series: Six Shades of a Rainbow [2]
Category: Mighty Morphin Power Rangers, Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: Coach is a jerk, F/M, Female Tommy Oliver, First Dates, First Kiss, Fluff, Post-Movie(s), Pre-Relationship, Superhero problems, Trans Tommy Oliver, background Trini/Kim, mentioned Billy/Jason, mentions of transphobia, oops looks like honesty might have solved some other problems, other rangers in the background, the fumbling getting to know you stage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-31
Updated: 2017-08-02
Packaged: 2018-12-09 09:06:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 10,520
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11665998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ardatli/pseuds/Ardatli
Summary: Wherein a new girl comes to school, and Zack falls hard and fast. Things get complicated from there.





	1. Light the Flame

The look on Principal Fry’s face when Zack started going to school on the regular again was half the fun.

It hadn’t been his first choice — going back and actually trying, that is. Walking through those doors in the morning felt like a tease. You know, ‘here’s the entry portal to a world that won’t be yours, and credentials that still won’t be enough.’

A high school diploma wasn’t going to get him into med school, after all. Even if it would, by the time he knew what he was doing, he’d still be a decade too late to save mom. Add on student loans, and his apparent new destiny to be an intergalactic superhero, and seriously, what was the point?

Except that Trini had given him lip about it, said that if _she_ had to deal with the grossness of Angel Grove High on a daily basis then he could damn well suck it up and have her back. And Billy made a point of giving him a high-five every time they crossed paths in the hallway. Which was a bigger deal than it sounded like, because Billy didn’t touch people unless he really meant it.

Jason and Kim were... Jason and Kim, still popular kids in outcasts’ clothing, but they listened when he talked, which was a lot more than he’d had in a long time.

And all of that was how he ended up standing there in the run-down old gymnasium on a rainy winter day, while Coach Bartlett lectured on about the differences in the rules between rugby (an ungodly game played by heathens) and good old American Football (tm) (R).

Zack tuned out the coach’s smoker’s cough in favour of checking out the girls instead, the keeners actually taking notes for the test, the rest of them looking as hideously bored as he was. Trini caught his eye and stuck out her tongue, and he pulled a face right back at her.

But behind her, standing apart from the other girls—that was a lot more interesting. She had to be new. Zack had been back at school pretty much full time for the past month, and he would definitely have noticed her if she’d been around.

She was tall, taller than Kim and most of it leg, and her long brown hair was pulled back in a half ponytail that framed her face. She was probably slim everywhere but he couldn’t tell through the square bulk of the green letter jacket from some other school, her hands jammed deep into the white-trimmed pockets. As for the rest of it – short skirt, black tights, low-heeled boots that made him uncomfortable in all the best ways. _Damn_ , he thought. And _niiiice._

Like she felt his eyes on her, she turned toward him, looked him up and down in a way that suggested she didn’t miss much. He smiled. She didn’t.

Lecture over, the coach switched to calling out teams —not girls against boys, which might have made things interesting (too bad they’d never get talked into shirts vs skins for _that_ one), but girls to the gym, boys to the field. He started to turn, to head off with Jason to the change rooms, when Bartlett’s raspy voice cut in to the hubbub.

“You’re Thomas Oliver.” Coach was talking to the new girl, and Zack hung back to listen. He wasn’t the only one. “Tommy Oliver- T-o-m-m-y? Short for Thomas. ‘Cause I’ve got you down here as Thomas.”

She didn’t flinch, tall and proud enough to look him right in the eye. “It’s Tommie. With an I-E. And I’m not short for anything.”

That grabbed a couple of laughs, the noise level in the gym dying down. Some of the other girls started drifting back, a couple of the cheerleaders whispering behind their hands.

“Well, _Tommie_ , you’re in the wrong group. Girls over here, boys over _there_.” Coach lifted his lip in an ugly sneer, and Zack’s hands curled into fists all on their own. Zordon and Alpha had been really damn clear about when and how they were allowed to use their powers, but if there had ever been a face that needed punching, it was right there in front of him.  

Tommie barely flinched, hands still in her jacket pockets and staring down Coach as cool as you please. “I’m in the right group.”

Coach started to turn red in the face, not used to being challenged, and sure as _hell_ not used to being challenged by a student. “No, you’re not. Get over there.” And he waved his meaty arm in Zack’s direction, and the door to the boys’ locker room.

He couldn’t beat the crap out of the gym teacher, no matter how much he wanted to, so Zack did the next thing that came to mind—impulsive, sure to bring the wrath of the faculty down on his head, but the right thing. _Hell, we’re already in detention. They can’t do anything more to us for speaking out._

“You’re not serious,” Zack called out, loud overtop of the buzz of conversation. His voice echoed off the high ceiling; he had their attention now. Trini was still in his line of sight, and she caught Zack’s eye, then nodded. Message acknowledged. She grabbed Kim’s arm and kept her from leaving. “Come on, coach. No-one wants a girl in the guy’s locker room.”

“I do,” came a muffled voice from one of the football jocks in the back, but the scuffle that followed sounded like he was being sat on.

Coach turned on Zack, like he’d expected, the red flush making it up his thick neck and past the collar of his Tigers tracksuit. “And no-one wants a _boy_ in the girls’ showers. Now if you’re done, Mr. Taylor-”

Trini cut in, pitching her voice just as loud. “What are you, blind? Please. Her eyeliner’s better than Kim’s.”

Coach wheeled around, his back to Zack, to face the new challenger. “Don’t you mouth off at me, young lady!”

Someone was at Zack’s elbow, and he barely had to look to know that it was Jason. A glance – _you in?_ – and a shrug back – _you have to ask?_ —and Jason stepped in to the circle of space that had opened up around Tommie and Coach Bartlett.

“Seriously,” Jason said, calling the attention of the room to himself. “What if she sees – you know. Guy stuff.”

“ _Private_ guy stuff,” Zack added for good measure. Call it wrong, but he was actually starting to enjoy this. Mostly for the look on Coach’s face as he approached terminal meltdown, but also for the hesitant surprise in Tommie’s eyes as the rangers stepped up.

“I’ve seen it, Jason,” one of the girls called back — one of Jason’s exes, Zack half-recognized, but he couldn’t remember her name. “It’s not that exciting.”

Jason rolled his eyes and sighed, the catcalling picking up from the guys on the football team.

“I’m pretty sure it’s against school rules to force someone to go in the wrong locker room.” And there was Kim stepping up to the plate, all sweetness and light hanging over her like the golden girl she used to be. She still had that effect—on adults, mostly—the aura of pretty-princess never quite washing away. “I could call my mom. She’s a lawyer, and she’d be able to tell us one way or the other. Title nine regulations-”

“Fine, fine!” Coach never quite reached terminal velocity, throwing his hands in the air with such force that his clipboard came close to taking flight. “Enough already! All of you get your gym uniforms on _somewhere,_ and for the love of God, no-one talk to me about locker rooms again.”

He stomped off towards his office, a black storm cloud practically forming over his head. And now that the entertainment was over the crowd broke up as well. Zack lingered for a minute, not sure exactly what he was hoping for. Which was fine, because nothing happened. Until he turned and yelped, because Tommie was standing right behind him, and he hadn’t even heard her approach.

“Geez, girl! You could give a guy a heart attack sneaking up like that.” He led with his big mouth and an exaggerated smile, a habit too ingrained to break.

It won him half a smile and a faint snort of a laugh, her green eyes looking into him, _through_ him, and leaving something bright and burning in their wake. _Damn_.

“Thank you,” she said after a moment that felt kind of like connection, or... or _recognition_ of something important. Something that faded away almost as soon as the realization hit, leaving him just a regular guy, standing in the gym with a classmate.

“No problem,” Zack shrugged the weirdness off with a grin. “Barrett’s a jerk. The only thing he cares about is his football team, and everyone knows it. We’ve got to stick together.”

She gave him a look as much wary as it was puzzled. “I’m sorry; _we_?”

“Students. You know. Fresh meat for the grinder.” _It isn’t just that, there’s something else here_ , but what it was precisely he couldn’t begin to guess.

“Zack Taylor,” he introduced himself. “You should come sit with my friends and me at lunch. Unless you get a better offer.” He kept it loose, easy, non-committal - _yeah, you can hang if you’re cool, or if not, no big_. The less he asked for, the less he’d be disappointed if it didn’t come.

Except Tommie raised an eyebrow, looked almost like she was considering it. Then she nodded, slowly. “I might.”

“Might come, or might get a better offer?” he pushed it, because that was what he did – ask anyone.

And like people usually did, she turned and started to head away. Right before she moved too far away to speak properly, she looked back at him over her shoulder. And she smiled. “I’ll let you know.”  

* * *

Zack was absolutely, totally, one hundred percent not watching the cafeteria door. Sadly, Jason was very busy watching him _not_ watching the door, and not being all that subtle about it either. And now Jason was taking a breath and he was going to say something, and Zack was not going to be held responsible for whatever was going to come out of _his_ mouth in response.

So Tommie emerged out of the lunch line at just the right time. She stood for a moment with her tray in her hands, scanning the room and looking – yeah, she probably wouldn’t hate him for thinking it – a bit lost in the chaos. The cafeteria was like any other high school caf; tables full of cliques and weirdos, and weirdo-cliques. Like theirs.

Zack wasn’t sure if the table had been Kim’s old one or unclaimed territory. Just that by the time he started coming back to class regular-like, it had already belonged to the rangers. And today he stood up, trying not to look too eager – keep it cool, boy – and waved her over.

“I guess she didn’t get a better offer after all,” Trini said, chin in her hand and grinning up at Zack. “Look at him,” she nudged Kim in the ribs. “He’s practically drooling.”

Zack sat, because his friends were all jerks, and he was beginning to regret his choices. “Let it go, crazy girl, or I’ll tell Kim what I caught you doodling in your notebook yesterday.” That got her, Kim’s head whipping around, and Trini scooping up a glob of what might once have been mashed potatoes on her spoon, like she was going to throw it at him.

“What were you doodling?” Kim reached across Trini to grab for the notebook, and Trini blocked her, a half-hearted struggle breaking out as Tommie rocked up next to the table.

Tommie paused for a beat, just long enough for Zack to get embarrassed, give up, and come back through to ‘whatever, this is my life now’ before she spoke, laughter in her voice. “This is where the cool kids sit?”

Kim, now with mashed potato on her nose, let go of the notebook and Trini shoved it into her backpack. Jason shook his head. “Technically it’s where the delinquents sit. Sorry. You’re falling in with a bad crowd.”

“Sure,” Kim snorted a laugh, producing a tissue from her purse and wiping her nose clean. “And if you believe that I’ve got a bridge to sell you.” She slid down the bench some, squishing herself up closer to Trini – who didn’t move – and making space.

Billy frowned at Kim from Jason’s other side. “You own a bridge?”

She shrugged. “It’s a metaphor.”

He shook his head. “Technically it isn’t; a metaphor is representative or symbolic of something else. Just saying you own a bridge isn’t symbolic of anything. It’s more of a – not an analogy, that requires the use of the word ‘like’-”

Tommie sat in the space Kim had left open, setting her tray down. “The word you’re looking for is idiom,” she suggested, those green, green eyes taking them all in. From the way Trini and Kim were tucked in against each other, to Jason’s ducked head and grin, and the excited clap of Billy’s hands as he agreed with her answer. And Zack might be the crazy one, but he could have sworn he saw her shoulders relax, just a little.

Billy went on for a while, like he did, and how did one kid manage to know so much about so many things? Zack would have had to study for years to pick up the information he seemed to absorb just by breathing.

“Call me crazy,” Tommie said after Billy had wound down, “but you don’t seem like delinquents. Unless Angel Grove sets the bar low.”

“It does,” Zack began, but Billy talked over him.

“We’re not delinquents, we just all have detention.”

She paused halfway through popping the top on her drink, a smile starting to curl up one corner of her mouth. “What did you do?”

Trini shrugged. “Kim punched a dude – I just skipped some classes.” She hadn’t been in the original lockup; either had Zack. But skipping school – even if it was to save the world – got you in trouble. Especially when you couldn’t explain exactly what kind of sludge monster it had been that ate not only the homework, but your textbook, backpack and half of Kim’s dad’s car.

So he fessed up as well, since the conversation was heading there anyway. “Same. I’m an unrepentant truant. Jason, on the other hand -- there was a cow involved.” 

“Technically it was a bull, not a cow.” Jason corrected him, nodding in that way he had when he was pretending to be serious. And Tommie’s eyes – they went wide, the look she gave Jason a lot more concerned than it had been before. “No! Not that way.”

“Says you.” Kim had been inching closer to Trini’s backpack and made another grab for it. Trini slid further down the bench in their game of keep-away, shoving her backpack further under the table.

“Billy’s the worst,” Trini added helpfully. “He blew up the locker room.”

“Seriously?” The surprised smile blossomed bright across Tommie’s face. “Now that’s something I can respect.” She held out her knuckles for a fistbump, an offer Billy didn’t accept.

“It was an accident!”

“Alarms went off, the fire department came-”

“Now you’re just making things up.”

Tommie dropped her hand and fell quiet again when the teasing started to fly, a half-smile lingering on her lips when Kim finally tackled Trini off the bench and made a break from the lunchroom with the notebook.

She didn’t say much more that lunch, but she came and sat with them the next day, and the day after that.  

* * *

She was in his math class. He passed her a note, up three tables and over one. It stalled out on Kait’s desk, a cheerleader so perky that uppers seemed like they’d be a lost cause, the folded piece of paper tucked under her elbow until Zack wanted to scream. But it got there, while the teacher was droning on about coefficients and tangents.

_Coffee after school on Wednesday?_

And when the note got back to him, just before the bell, her sharp, angular writing was at the bottom.

_Sure. Why not._

It wasn’t a super-enthusiastic yes, but it was something he could work with.

* * *

Zack almost missed meeting Tommie after the final bell. Wednesdays were weird like that.

He had a spare final period, which meant time to run home and check in with his mom (easier now that he could move so much faster; harder when he was trying not to get caught doing it). But this Wednesday had been one of her bad days.

He’d gone home earlier, been there longer, until mom had finally called him out on his restlessness. It was always there, the pull that came from not knowing where he was supposed to be, from the wanting and the urge to run without knowing where to and how far.

_Here; he was supposed to be here with her. Nothing else mattered in the long run._

“Get out,” she’d finally told him when he’d fessed up. He couldn’t keep anything from her, he never could. He’d never had to say the words about being a Ranger. She’d just known. Same way she knew this time when he’d looked at his phone one too many times, checked on her pillows and brought a third cup of tea in fifteen minutes.

“If you keep that girl waiting too much longer, she won’t be waiting for you at all,” mom had said. “No matter how handsome you are.”

So he’d given in, because no-one ever won an argument with his mother. Not once.

The parking lot at school was still full. It was only a few minutes past the bell, the exodus still in full swing. Tommie was waiting for him by the door, a frown settling in between her eyes that cleared when he vaulted up over the railing and landed easily beside her on the stairs.

(Too much, too obvious, but she hadn’t seemed to notice the use of his powers. Call it his one freebie.)

“I thought you’d changed your mind.” Tommie stared him down, her expression closed down, not frowning but not smiling either. Waiting.

“Like I’d miss out on this?” Zack pushed the laugh, the wild grin that was the easiest one to reach when everything else was tangled. “Come on, pretty girl. Let’s hit the town.” That made her smile. Not a full one, so much still holding back behind her eyes. But he’d take what he could get. (He hadn’t earned more. Not yet.)

He had her laughing by the time they had coffees in hand. Well, no. He had a coffee, she had an obscene joke of a coffee drink with three pumps of caramel and whipped cream that left a smear of sugar on her upper lip when she lifted the lid to drink.

Tables were good but booths were better, even when she slid in across from him rather than beside. The coffee hit him warm and sharp, no sugar to cut the burned-bitter taste that held half the wake-up power of the stuff.

At least the conversation was easy once they were away from classmates and the echoes in the school halls, from watching for the sideways looks. There was so much he wanted to know, and asking her about herself helped to keep the questions away from him, from him and all the things he wanted to talk about and never could. “Where’d you move from, anyway? And why Angel Grove? We’re not exactly on the ‘top 500 places to visit in America’, especially after what happened this year.”

“That’s part of it, actually.”

His hand twitched at his side, wanting to reach out and brush the white smudge from her lip. She got there first, her lip glistening and soft, damp from the tip of her tongue.

_Damn._

Tommie’s smile quirked up, like she’d noticed him staring. Zack sprawled against the cushions, draped his arm across the back of his side of the booth like he didn’t care at all that he’d been caught out. “How so?”

She shrugged, stirring the whipped cream into her drink. “My dad’s in construction, a subsidiary that works with FEMA. So when whatever the hell that was happened here, he got an option to transfer over. Why not, right? A chance to start again in a different podunk little town.” Her eyes had a challenge in them, one he didn’t bite at.

“If you wanted podunk and little, you sure made the right choice. Angel Grove is the armpit of California.” But there was something she hadn’t mentioned, and he cocked his head, watching her. “What about your mom? Does she work for the same place?” You’d think he’d know better than asking that, but people seemed to be happier when he assumed that their families were normal, _whole_.

Tommie shook her head, a few strands of brown hair falling from the ribbon holding back her bangs. When she spoke, though, she held his eyes, the aura of ‘fight me’ sitting thick as an aura around her. “She went all Jesus-freak on me a couple of years ago when I came out.” There it was, the challenge and the pain. Defiance simmered below, through and over her skin, power and fuel and fire burning green in the depths of her eyes. “She wanted to put me in electroshock therapy or send me to a camp for wayward queers. So dad left her, and took me. It’s been just us ever since.”  

And around the lump in his throat, the breathlessness that caught him tight, Zack nodded back. “He seems cool.” What else was there to say?

He hadn’t come out, not to mom, even though – once again – he was pretty sure she knew. But he’d never brought a boy home; never even brought a girl home. It was always, always easier to try and keep his worlds separate.

It didn’t work, but it didn’t mean he hadn’t tried.

She’d probably be fine with it. His mom was one of the best people he knew. But still. Even good people had blind spots. And that was one he didn’t want to learn.

(There was always that thought – she’d be gone soon. Then none of it would matter. Why run the risk, why upset the boat? Because if he was wrong, and her last thoughts of him were of disappointment – if she went to her grave hating some part of him – how could he keep going?)  

Head in the sand. That was easier, and he needed some space for easy somewhere in his world.

Tommie didn’t notice his internal war, or the way his mind had drifted. She just nodded, the smile coming back, and the thick bubble of anticipation-tension slipped away. “He is. What about you?”

“Am I cool?” he scoffed, deliberately misunderstanding the question. He spread his hands wide and gestured at himself. “Obviously.”

“Get over yourself,” Tommie snorted a laugh. “You know what I mean.”

So he dropped the act, the shield between himself and the world. “It’s just me and my mom. She’s awesome, and we’re pretty tight.”

And looking at Tommie eased the mess, loosened the strangling knot in the depths of his stomach. She was something else —not just in the ‘ _hello_ ’ sense, but also in everything she wasn’t. She wasn’t a Ranger, or a hero. Not a doctor or a social worker or a teacher. Just a girl. Which let him, for once what felt like forever, just be a boy.

“Oh no,” Tommie deadpanned, hands wrapped around her cup. “Single teens with single parents. We’re the setup for a rom-com.”

“Pitch it to Hallmark, we’ll make millions.” Zack laughed, and this time Tommie laughed with him.

* * *

Coffee turned into a walk, the breeze plucking at Tommie’s sundress and tugging the floaty skirt snug against her legs. He didn’t feel so bad about noticing when he caught her glancing at him once or twice, her eyes lingering on his shoulders. And if more of a strut came into his step after the first one, what of it? It felt good to be noticed, better to be noticed _back._

It wasn’t quite sunset, the shadows of the trees long against the ground. The playground was empty now, the little kids usually hanging off the jungle gyms and screaming around the swings all gone home, to be fed dinner and tucked into their beds by gentle hands. The warm light touched everything with gold, picked out the summer highlights in Tommie’s hair as she boosted herself up to sit on the wooden bridge of the kiddie climber. Zack followed, settling in beside her and dangling his legs over the edge.

“What’s your instrument?” she was asking, a conversation they’d been having since before ducking under the hole in the wire of the fence around the elementary schoolyard.

“Guitar,” he shrugged. “I like being able to mess around with it on my own, instead of dealing with band and music class and stuff. A guy with a trumpet at a campfire just seems weird, but a guitar can go everywhere.”

“That reasoning definitely rules out the double-bass,” she agreed easily. “You don’t strike me as a country music kind of guy, though. Unless you’ve got a secret passion for the trucks-and-farm-girls genre.”

“Not so much. I like my classic rock. But Billy’s got the biggest collection of Dolly Parton and Johnny Cash tracks I’ve ever seen.” He didn’t feel too bad about outing Billy’s secret love. One afternoon at his place and she’d pick up on the twangy banjos pretty quick.

(And he didn’t even question how he’d started to assume she’d be there, like she could fit the pieces of her life against the edges of his without raw spots or empty spaces. Or that she’d even want to try.)

“Your turn,” he said instead, nudging his thigh against the long line of hers, so close against him in the early twilight. “What’s your big thing when you’re not at school.”

“I’m not all that musical,” Tommie admitted. “But back home, my old town, I mean – I taught at the dojo.”

“No shit?”

“No shit. I’ve got a black belt in karate.”

And if Zack had to pinpoint the moment his libido just up and died from overstimulation, that would have been the one to stick a pin in. “Daaaamn,” he drawled, his overactive imagination already filling in with images of her in a gi, (of her in ranger armour, green like her eyes, and how had that slipped in there?), of Tommie pinning him down and keeping him against the mat, her hair falling down around them like a curtain-

Yeah. So he liked cuties who could fold him in half without breaking a sweat. Kick his ass and call him a power bottom. It was one of the reasons Trini’d yanked his chain so nice when they’d first met, all that fire and destructive potential wrapped up in a soft and curvy package. It was a primal sort of thing he didn’t feel like examining all that closely.

Except she’d taken his surprise as something else. “What, girls can’t fight?” she asked him, her defences on high alert. And didn’t they have to be? He was still an unknown factor, still a potential entry on her list of ‘terrible first dates.’

“Oh hell no,” he corrected her assumption as fast as he could, shaking his head. “Trini and Kim are terrifying and could take me down in a heartbeat. That was my impressed face. Do you compete?”

“I used to,” Tommie replied, her voice and face wistful, her arms resting on the bridge railing as they looked out over the playground, the sky beginning to turn gold and orange. “But I’m not allowed anymore. The officials get freaky about what division to put me in.”

 _You have got to come and train with us,_ he almost said. _We can fill some of those empty spaces for you,_ he almost added. _I want to take that sad off your face and bring back the smile._

Except he didn’t say any of it, other people’s secrets sour and solid on the back of his tongue.

“They’re just jealous because they know you’d wipe the floor with anyone they put up against you.” It was a poor second choice but the smile came back, along with a flush of colour across the top of her cheekbones.

“You’ve never even seen me fight.”

“Don’t need to, girl. You’ve got fire.”

Chill seeped into the evening air but she was warm against his side, and the temptation was just too fucking much. Zack laid his hand over hers, carefully, slowly, giving her time to pull away if she wanted.

She didn’t.

So he brushed the strands of hair away from her eyes, rested his palm against her cheek, let her heat sink into his skin. She leaned into the touch, her eyes fluttering closed and her lashes long and dark against her cheeks. And she pressed her hand against his, to keep him there cupping her face, hold the sweetness of touch and skin on skin.

“Tommie,” he asked softly, and she opened her eyes again. In the daylight her eyes had been emeralds, glittering and sharp. Now they were jade, soft in the evening shadow, the gentle grey-green that meant welcome home.

Zack kissed her, because he couldn’t do anything else. He kissed her sweet and kissed her chaste, a brush of his lips against hers that spiralled a firework deep down into his gut and ignited it there. And when he sat back, the taste of caramel and whipped cream stayed on his lips. “I think I’ve got a new favourite flavour,” he murmured, the cheesiest line that had ever come out of his mouth but the truest at the same time.

“I thought you didn’t like caramel,” she teased, her low voice everything warm and thrilling.

“It grew on me.” He was sunk before he’d realized there was a hole in the side of his boat. Titanic on an iceberg, baby; look out below.

He wanted – he wanted to kiss her again, to try it with tongue, to hear his name in her mouth the way her voice was now, husky-deep and half-distracted. Skin tingling, breath catching in his chest, he leaned in again, closed his eyes in anticipation as sweet as every Christmas morning.

His phone buzzed angrily in his pocket, the particular rhythm that meant Jason, that meant _trouble_ , that meant ‘fall in, soldier, and fuck everything you were doing before.’

Fuck him. Zack stole another kiss, as careful and gentle as the last, before the guilt soured everything else.

 _Something’s up at the ship,_ said the text when he sat back, pulled his phone out to check it. Tommie’s eyes stayed closed for a breath, the growing dark shielding her expression as he jammed his phone back into his pocket.

“I have to go,” Zack apologized. “It’s- work. Something’s come up. With inventory. And they need me to go in.” He was a shelf-stocker, that much was true. It wasn’t a great lie, but what the hell else could he do? If it was just him-

But that was the point of a team. It was never going to be just-Zack again. And some things he just didn’t have the right to expose to the light.

“Sure,” she said, because what else could she do? A moment ago they’d been connected, sinking into each other, tasting the very beginning of something new, sweet and wild. Now she was dropping down to the ground and smoothing her hair back into place, the cool air a wall between them one more time.

He followed and grabbed for her hand before she could walk away. “I’m sorry. This isn’t me bailing out on you, I swear. I want to do this again. Friday, Saturday, whenever.”

Tommie let him tug her closer in and she chewed on her bottom lip for a second before nodding. “Sure,” she said again, and this time she met his gaze. “Okay. As long as this isn’t about the caramel,” she finished, light back in her eyes.

“Cross my heart and swear,” he vowed, clasping his free hand over his heart just to drive the promise home. “I like you, Tommie Oliver.”

“You’re not so bad yourself, Zack Taylor.” She took her hand back instead of kissing him again. “But you’d better go, if you have to go. I don’t want to be responsible for getting you fired.”

“I’ll see you later,” he promised, walking backwards rather than turning around. “And pick up where we left off.”

“Keep dreaming,” she called back, standing in the park, her arms folded at her waist. “You’ll have to work a little harder than that.”

“Deal!” And then he did turn to jog away, not breaking into his real speed until he was behind the houses and out of sight.

* * *

“A signal coming from the moon,” Zack said, disgust thick in his voice. “That’s it? I’m pretty sure NASA’s got a handle on that shit, Zordon.”

“We’ll keep an eye on it,” Jason interrupted, giving him a glare. “It could be something.”

“I can’t believe I ran out on my date for this.”

* * *

**Tommie: See you after school?**

**Zack: I can’t. I have to-**

‘Go train,’ he almost typed. But then she’d ask what, and with whom, and he’d be stuck in another lie.

**Zack: I can’t. I have to work Thursdays. How about Saturday?**

**Tommie: Sure. 2 pm, at the park?**

**Zack: I’ll be there.**

* * *

Zack’s line about Trini and Kim being able to take him out wasn’t an exaggeration, especially as distracted as he was. Thursday evenings were for the team, but he couldn’t get his mind off the night before, off the promise for Saturday afternoon, or the way his world was changing under and around him. Excitement was good for him, but maybe not for his cred as the fake enemies — and his real teammates —sat him flat on his ass over and over again.

He crapped out and sprawled across one of the rocks, water bottle in hand, watching Kim and Billy face off. A time-out to consider his many sins and get his head back on right, a quiet moment that ended when Jason sat down beside him, his jacked arms shiny-sweaty from the workout.

“You like her,” Jason started the conversation halfway through, but Zack didn’t need to think too hard to catch up.

He swigged from the bottle and passed it over to Jason, using his hand to wipe off the top. “Yeah, I like her.”  

“You know she’s-”

And all Zack’s alarms went off. Jason was a good guy, yeah, and he hadn’t blinked at any of the personal shit that anyone had thrown his way over the past months. But there was always a first time to show his ass. “Don’t say something stupid that means I’ll have to hit you.”

Jason recoiled, hurt flashing in his fair eyes. “Can you give me some credit? I was going to say, she’s not a Power Ranger. You have to be really careful what you tell her, Zack. Is it worth it?”

“Do I have a choice?” Zack pushed himself up to sitting, resting his elbows on his knees. “Trini and Kim, you and Billy-”

“It’s not like that.”

“Don’t make me hit you for saying something even stupider. Look,” Zack continued, taking the bottle back. “Either I date someone who isn’t in on it, or I don’t date. And celibacy’s not my thing. I’m not going to be a fifth wheel forever.

“I like her. Maybe she’ll like me, maybe she won’t. But either way, it’s got nothing to do with the team.”

Jason shook his head, and Zack could see Jason’s father in the set of Jason’s jaw, in the way he took everything on his own shoulders even when it wasn’t his problem –and none of his business. “Just be careful, all right?”

“Keep your eyes on your own paper, Jason. I’ve got this.”

Zack pushed himself to his feet, and wiped his hands off on the thighs of his track pants. And when he engaged again, even as he landed hard in the dirt, the sense-memory of soft lips and sweet caramel overrode the shock of impact and the dust in his nose. And when he headed home, the bruises already healed, it was with the image of jade-green eyes held close around his heart.


	2. Right Before it Rains

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Tommie has a proposition from an unlikely source.

Tommie and her dreams had something of a contentious relationship. When she was younger there had been a lot of nightmares, ones she couldn’t remember when she woke up. Those had left a thudding in her heart and a feeling of wrong-ness in her body that lasted half the day or more. Then the Estradiol had done a number on her once she’d started hormones, the nightmares fading in favour of lucid dreaming, Technicolor fantasies so tangible that the real world looked dull and grey in the morning.

They’d changed again since moving to Angel Grove. Maybe it was the move – there was a ‘transitions’ joke in there somewhere – or maybe it was something about her room, the view of the ocean from her window.

Whatever it was, they’d started with the new moon, gotten more real, more vivid every night, until she knew from the moment she closed her eyes what she was going to see.

She wore armour, but not like a knight’s armour; more like a stunt guy’s suit with reinforced joints, sleek and shiny and green. (The armour was a metaphor; she could practically hear her old therapist’s voice, the words curling around and vanishing like puffs of a caterpillar’s smoke.) And she was herself in the dream, in the dream-armour, her body real and perfect, faster and stronger than anyone could ever be. She ran through the streets of Angel Grove (why here? What was it about this place?), and the stars burned bright enough, close enough to touch overhead.

And then she would wake up, every time, the pressure of the armour still tangible against her skin. She would open her eyes expecting to be looking out through a visor, or a viewscreen—only to find nothing there.

Only memories of a dream, a whisper on the wind, and a voice that lingered, calling her name, writing it in shivers along the very back of her spine.

Maybe it was the move, or something out of balance with her hormones. Or maybe it was some side effect of hanging around with Zack and his friends, and the undercurrent of _weird_ that floated around them all the time.

Because she wasn’t dumb. She saw the looks they gave each other behind her back, and it had nothing to do with _Tommie_. It was about where they all vanished to after school some days, the unlikeliest group of five she’d ever seen. And about the way Zack bounced around like some god of parkour, except when he thought someone was watching. Or the way Trini was able to catch that ball coming at the back of her head, without even blinking – or turning around.

There was a secret here that she wasn’t part of. One that Zack hadn’t even hinted at. She was the new kid, on the outside again.

And the voice in her dreams, the one that was almost but not quite like Dr. MacAllen—it wouldn’t let her forget it.

But Zack was cute as hell, and he was sweet, and he’d stuck up for her before anyone else, which meant something. It had to mean something or she’d be right back to square one, all alone in a new town.

And if she didn’t hurry up with her makeup, she was going to be late meeting him. Tommie frowned at herself in the mirror. For a moment, just one, a stranger’s green eyes flashed back at her. _Ridiculous._ She shook off the fugue and reached for her lipstick, ignoring the almost-full moon hanging in the silvered reflection of the afternoon sky.

* * *

Another sunset, this one over the quarry outside of town, green trees shading into dark shadows on the sides of the hills. A breeze was picking up again, not enough to be cold. Tommie tucked her feet under her, the picnic blanket draped over the top of the old train car Zack’s big concession to comfort.

He was sprawled out beside her, loose-limbed and easy, hands locked behind his head. The white t-shirt clung and stretched across his chest, a narrow line of skin winking at her from where the hem had tugged up from his jeans.

She wanted-

She ignored the impulse.

“You like it up here,” she said instead, looking away from the contrast of black denim and golden skin, from the hint of abs and fine, dark hair.

His shoulders shifted in something like a shrug. “It’s peaceful. Most of the time,” he amended a second later, smiling at some joke she didn’t understand.  

She let that one go as well, another pinprick of doubt in the lofty balloon-feel of hope. The sun sank further, the moon rising brighter overhead.

He should have brought his guitar. She’d have liked to have heard him play, before whatever-this-was imploded. “I have to ask,” Tommie replied a moment later. “Why me?”

“You’re seriously asking me that question?” The way he cocked his head at her, he looked so much like a confused spaniel that she had to bite the inside of her cheek to stop herself from bursting into a laugh.

“Yeah, I am. Out of everyone at Angel Grove High, hell, out of any girl in town. Why me. Unless it’s because anyone who’s lived here long enough already knows all your flaws.”

He laughed at her—no, not at her, but with her, at himself—and he pushed himself up to sit straight, his hair flopping despite the gel he’d stroked through to keep it in place. Nothing about him followed the rules. “Because you’re super-cute, a’ight?” And his smile lit him up, bright and wild. “You’ve got this whole Sailor Jupiter thing going on. The crazy legs, the ponytail, the little skirts...” and he gestured enthusiastically in the air with his hands as he spoke.

“Wait, whoa, back up. You’ve been hitting on me because I remind you of a sailor scout?” Who _was_ he? She laughed, the sound pulled out of her despite every misgiving that had been whispering deep inside her ear.

Zack had the courtesy to at least look a little sheepish, glancing out toward the moon before grinning at her again. “What’s so weird about that? Jupiter was my first crush. You never forget your first.”  

“She’s a cartoon,” Tommie reminded him, her voice dry even to herself.

“And you’re not, which makes it even better. Besides, that’s why I _noticed_ you. Not why I asked you out.”

“That’s semantics.”

“It totally isn’t.” He leaned forward, arm resting on his knee, getting into her space. She didn’t pull away. “I like being around you. Does it need to be more complicated than that?”

If only! A dream-memory tugged at her, a tired ache that didn’t feel entirely _hers_ swelling inside her chest _._ “A lot of things are complicated.”  

“And,” he replied, his voice softening and his eyes holding hers, “some aren’t nearly as bad as you think.”

“You’re fine with-” she gestured at herself, but that was a there they hadn’t gone yet, not even in conversation, and _God_ , why did it have to get brought up at all? Defeated, she curled her arms around her knees and tugged them up close to her chest. “What is it that you want from me?”

And Zack... he just shrugged, like it wasn’t something that had been on his mind, like his idea of ‘complicated’ was empirically different than hers. “You’re cute,” he offered, and he seemed to think that was enough. “I’m hoping maybe you think I’m cute. We go out, see some movies, maybe even make an appearance at some dumb school dance before going ‘later, losers’ and book out to spend the evening under the stars.” And then – and _then_ , the big dork – he waggled his eyebrows at her and put on a leer so broad that it would have been a failing grade in a first year acting class. “And heeeey. If things go well, you know, if you wanted to, then I can work with _whatever_ you’ve got.”

The laugh swelled up from deep inside, bursting out despite herself, pushing aside all the tired-sad-wary feelings tying themselves into knots in her chest. “Oh my God. Tell me you did not just say that out loud.”  

“Eh.” And his smile back at her was enough to make her knees buckle, warm and wild and free. “I can work on my pitch.”

Tommie brushed her hair out of her eyes, the laugh slowly bubbling down into giggles that she still couldn’t shake. “Trust me, you need to.” But it gave her an opening to ask something, and she took it before conversation died out again. “... so _are_ you straight?”

Zack shook his head, and the knot inside Tommie tried to decide whether it needed to tangle up again or not. “Me? No. I’m bi.” (The knot loosened again, faded into something so insubstantial it might as well not have been there at all.) “So’s Kim, I think, but Trini’s a girl’s girl. They’re going out, in case you hadn’t caught that one.”

Sure, like she was blind? “The wearing each other’s clothes thing pretty much spelled that out.”

A frown line creased between Zack’s dark brows. “They were doing what now?”

_Boys._

“What about Billy and Jason? Are they a thing?”

“As far as Billy’s concerned they might as well be married. Jason’s a good old boy – he’s still unpacking some of his shit. But he’ll get there. Before prom, hopefully, so the rest of us don’t have to knock some sense into him.” Zack snorted, but there was affection in it even if he didn’t seem to think so.

“So, what. I just accidentally fell in with the queer kids club?” Hope started to build up again, filling the hollow spaces left inside.

“What can I say? We know our own.” His fingers found hers, not intruding, just brushing lightly across her knuckles so that she could, if she wanted to, turn her hand over and take his.

She didn’t, but she did lift a finger to return the gesture as his hand went by.

Silence swelled between them again, still comfortable, still sweet. “Things are weird in my life,” Tommie confessed, and the moon seemed to nod at her in confirmation.

Zack’s voice was quieter when he replied, more introspective than she was used to hearing coming out of him. “I get that. Believe me, I get that.”

“But it’s nice to have someone on my side. Thank you for this, Zack.” And she pulled up all the bravery she had left. She leaned over. His eyes went wide, the last thing she saw before she pressed her own eyes shut tight and brushed her lips across his. As soft as his touch, uncertain.

Zack let her. Then, when she sat up again, he followed. His hand in her hair, tangling in the long strands, he waited a moment for her to give him permission before he leaned in. Soft again, sweet, tender and hopeful.

And that feeling of right-ness that swamped her, same as in the park, overriding her caution and her good sense. She kissed him back, gave in to it, let go the tight over-thinking, the what-ifs and if-onlys-

Because he liked her, and he was kissing her, and that was something she wasn’t sure she would ever really get to have.

He leaned over, set her down on her back, kissed her again. She opened to him, slipped her tongue between his lips, testing, tasting. His hand curved around her hip, fingertips below the hem of her shirt. The pad of his thumb danced in light circles in the hollow there, laying trails of fire with every pass. Human touch, sensual and warm, a craving she’d tried so hard to ignore. _Need me. Want me. Make me real._

She sank her fingers into his hair and held his face between her hands, kissed him as raw and needy as she pleased. Tommie’s blood ran hot, her pulse raced and her body responded in kind.

_No._

Too much. At least for now.

She broke the kiss, her palm flat against his chest. He took her cue and sat up right away, raking his hand through his hair. Not angry or upset, but with a wild energy that almost crackled around him.

“Damn, girl,” he said with a soft reverence that she would never have expected to hear, not from him. He was supposed to be the bad boy, the delinquent, the leather-jacket-wearing party kid who treated high school and all its component parts like an afterthought. And he looked at her as though she was some kind of amazing surprise.

“That was-” she faltered for a moment, long enough to see wariness begin to gather in his eyes. “Amazing,” she finished quickly, sitting up, and the constellation of concern flickered out and vanished. “I mean it. I just.”

“It’s fine. I meant what I said about anything _you_ want to do, ‘k? Even if it’s back to just hanging out.” He looked so earnest saying it, even with a flush warm across the tops of his cheekbones and the way his gaze kept drifting back toward her lips.

Tommie shook her head, her heart thudding so loud in her chest she was sure he’d be able to hear it. “Definitely not that. It’s just... can we take our time?” She shivered, the air no colder than it had been minutes ago, but her world tilting unsteadily beneath her.

“You got it.” He said it like it was something easy, running his hand down her arm. Zack frowned. “Are you cold? Here-” he started to shrug out of his jacket.

“No, I’m fine.” Tommie fought off the odd sensation, an electric current that skimmed across her skin. “But it’s getting late, and my dad will be wondering where I am. I should go. Did you want a ride back into town?”

Zack shook his head, his gaze flickering over her shoulder, looking at something behind her. “No, it’s cool. I’m going to stay out here a while longer. Unless you want the company, in which case I’m all yours.”

“Nice try, romeo,” she teased, trying to recapture that easy-breezy joking around from before.

He took her hand as she stepped down onto the ladder. “Hey, you.”

“Hey yourself,” she replied, brushing her hair back away from her eyes, the breeze kicking up as the night grew dark.

“Are we good?”

“Yeah. We’re good.” She almost changed her mind, the heat sitting low in her gut trying to convince her that staying would be the best possible choice of them all. A compromise, then, to walk the hair-thin line between desire and rational thought. “How about tomorrow,” Tommie offered, biting at her bottom lip. “Come over after school?”

“For serious?” Zack asked, that smile coming back, and she was sure he was going to say yes, was sure he was going to- but his smile faded and he made an irritated sound. “I can’t. It’s Thursday.”

“And you’re working.” Disappointment shouldn’t have tasted so sour, given that she was the one calling a halt to their evening. “Fair enough.” And she had a standing dinner-at-home on Friday nights, which left “Saturday?”

“You’re on.”

He stayed there watching over her as she climbed down, her purse bouncing lightly against her hip. He’d touched her there and the sense-impression, the heat of his skin, still lingered.

Halfway back to her car, Tommie looked over her shoulder, at the abandoned train car tossed aside from the track. Zack was still standing on top, a backlit shape against the night. The way the security light framed him the orange glow seeping around his shoulders made him otherworldly; her very own fiery angel.

Tommie looked away, kept her eyes focused on picking her way along the path to her car. And when she reached it, and turned around again, Zack was gone.

* * *

Tommie’s dreams that night coiled around her, serpentine and intangible, vanishing with the morning sun. Images; she had flashes of images. A woman’s face, Zack at the quarry, the moon hanging full and round in the sky. And words, whispers that went silent the moment she tried to focus; words that slithered around inside her, fangs slowly dripping poison and doubt into her thoughts.

* * *

Coffee and a shower made things easier, cleared away the detritus of the night before. _Note to self – talk to doctor about tweaking my meds._ Lucid dreaming was one thing, but the run of bad nights showed no signs of letting up. The last couple of mornings she’d woken up feeling more tired than when she’d gone to bed in the first place. Which probably explained why she was being so weird about Zack, why watching him goof around with Billy and Jason that morning had made her chest clench. Anxiety dream hangover. Well, she was better than that.

Forcing the rest of the day to Be Normal went well, all things considered. It was more of the bull in a china shop approach to conquering a mood than anything her therapist would have approved of, but whatever worked.

The distraction meant she was halfway home before she remembered the book she’d jammed in her bag that morning, the one she’d meant to lend to Zack and completely forgotten about at lunch, or when he’d grabbed her hand and pulled her behind the school for a kiss after the bell.

That was fine; she knew where he worked, after all. Dropping it off at the store would only take her a couple of minutes out of her way. Except that when she walked in, book in hand and her heels clicking softly on the tiled floor, the manager only shook his head. “Nah,” he said, and the snake inside Tommie’s hindbrain hissed a warning. “Zack’s not here. He isn’t working Thursdays this semester.”

“Thanks,” Tommie said, her own voice distant in her ears, and her feet carried her out of the store on their own. Back to her car, enclosed and calm, and she pulled up her message logs on her phone. She’d been wrong, she’d obviously misunderstood.

Except she hadn’t.

**Zack: I can’t. I have to work Thursdays. How about Saturday?**

And (from the Thursday before),

**Zack: Catch you later; on my way to work.**

And

**Zack: Sorry I didn’t answer before – was at work with my phone off.**

He’d lied to her. Not once, not spur of the moment, but consistently.

Tommie jabbed at the screen, dialled his number. The phone rang, and it rang. She glanced up at the store window just in case – in case what? In case he was standing there and watching her? In case he was gesturing to her from the upstairs window to signal for help because his manager had locked him up there until he finished inventory counts? Please, girl.

Zack didn’t answer his phone.

On an impulse, because that was another possibility, she called his home number. He’d told her enough that she knew his mother would be home, enough to know that if no-one was there at all, then maybe she’d try the hospital-

His mother did answer, and her confusion rang as loud across the line as Tommie’s. “Thursday,” Zack’s mom repeated. “Is date night. He is not with you?”

He’d mentioned her to his mother; maybe that was a good sign? Except not, because Thursday had never been their night. Not once.

Thank God for apps and their constant updates and security holes, because Snapchat showed her where he was. In the quarry.

That was when she knew, the coiled snake rising, its eye-spotted hood flaring wide. _He’s on a date, but not with you. He’s on the train car, his favourite place, and he’s kissing someone else. Probably has his hands down their pants, their mouth on him-_

He wouldn’t.

But how much did she actually know about him, when it came down to things?

She didn’t know anything at all.

The tumble of disjointed angry thoughts hadn’t gotten any clearer by the time she got home. Dad was still at work, thank God, no-one there to give her Concerned Face and try to make her hot chocolate and talk about her problems. She didn’t have the words for this one yet, not even close.

The workout dummy in the basement took the brunt of it, Tommie’s hands and feet stinging and dust puffing into the air with every blow. The sound satisfied, the shock-pain of impact racing up her arm and legs a reminder of life. Her eyes burned with the tears of humiliation, of rage, and every time she blinked she saw that cartoon map again, Zack’s location flagged in black.

_Why did you have to lie?_

She’d been doing just _fine_ on her own. Now everything was a mess inside. Why couldn’t stupid Zack just have left well enough alone?

 _The answer’s simple,_ hissed the snake, the hate-filled voice that she’d gotten so much better at silencing. Until now. Until him. Now it filled her up and drowned everything else, louder than the sounds of her fists against padded leather, the strike of her heel against wood.

_He’s probably got some pornhub fetish that he thinks you can fill, a kinky wet dream in-potential. Why would he want anything more?(Why would anyone?)_

Now _Tommie_ was the one who was alone. And it wouldn’t have mattered, except for the part where she’d wanted so much to believe.

Just once.

* * *

She took dinner up to her room, lied about homework and projects and closed the door tight on her father’s heartfelt care. The window she left open, the breeze from the ocean carrying the sounds and smells of evening. A world that carried on while she was shaking herself apart.

The sun set and the moon rose, full and low over the water.

And with it came the light.

Why should the moonlight be green? Tommie noticed and then dismissed it, the mirror calling to her in a voice her brain heard, but not her ears.

This was a dream, then; she’d fallen asleep at her desk and that was why she paced across her bedroom now, sat down at her dressing table as though pulled by magnets, or her strings tangled in the hands of a clumsy puppeteer.

Her face blurred in the mirror, two faces superimposed over the reflection of the moon. Was this the dream where she saw herself the way she was supposed to be? Or the nightmare where it was taken away?

Or something new, the air smoky and thick, eyes that weren’t hers at all looking out at her from the glass. Tommie closed her eyes, her skin prickling and cold, dread a leaden lump low inside her chest.

_Wrong, wrong something is wrong here this isn’t a dream._

“Nonsense,” the mirror woman answered in the snake’s voice, golden and bilious and deadly. “I’m as real as you. More real than them. More honest, too.”

There was a snake that could freeze you with a look; Tommie remembered a story from a book of myths. Basilisk. And Tommie was still, her tongue stiff in her mouth.

“A basilisk is a monster, not a snake,” the mirror woman corrected her, and she reached a taloned hand toward the glass. Toward Tommie. But it was a dream, and she was inside the reflection. She couldn’t reach Tommie, couldn’t do what she was doing right now which was trailing the tip of that long talon down Tommie’s throat, over her collarbone, between her breasts. “And I’m not either.”

When she cocked her head it bent wrong, the wrongness of it so much worse than the trail of ice left behind her touch. _Zack!_ Tommie couldn’t make her throat shape the words, or move her lips.

_Daddy, help me._

He was downstairs, and Zack was a liar, and neither of them could hear her at all.

“You don’t need to be alone. Why do you cling to this paltry existence, when you could be so. much. more?”

A light flashed green.

The mirror only showed herself again, only Tommie and her bedroom behind her, the window, and the moon.

She could move, could talk, could run- “Holy shit.” Tommie’s shoulders sagged in relief. A dream, some kind of disassociation again, and that could be fixed. She could get her meds checked and maybe changed up, get more sleep. She turned in her chair, tried to stand. The woman in green pressed her hands down on Tommie’s shoulders and put her back down into her seat. The smell of ocean and dust curled in around her, the metallic tang of gold and the scream of dying planets.

_Not a dream._

“How did you get in here?” Tommie meant to cry the challenge but it came out soft, pleading. “What do you want?”

“I have an offer for you.” Basilisk eyes drilled into her, and Tommie’s head swam. “I can make you whole. I can make you who you should have been all along.” Her fingers walked back up Tommie’s arm, a trail of numbness left in their wake.

The world blurred, smoke-filtered and monochrome, and still the voice kept coming, filling every corner of her skull, until her own thoughts were gone. “Let me. Take care. Of you.”

“No,” Tommie whispered, but why? What was she holding on to? She couldn’t remember. Thoughts were wisps of cloud that turned to rain when she closed her fingers on them. Rita wanted to help her. Wasn’t that nice?

“I can tell you all their secrets,” Rita murmured behind Tommie’s ear. She turned Tommie in her seat so that she stared at them in the mirror, Rita’s long dark hair a garrotte curled around Tommie’s throat. “I can give you somewhere to belong. And all you have to do-”

How nice she was, and how kind. That was all Tommie had ever wanted, after all. (The small voice in the back of Tommie’s mind kept screaming, but that was only because she didn’t understand.)

“Yes?” Tommie asked. She turned, and looked up at her queen.

“- is take my hand.”

* * *

  ** _"It's time to light the flame, right before it rains / I'm not afraid, I'm not."_**

**_~ Kesha, True Colors_ **


End file.
